‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ Will Be Redesigned Because of Trailer Criticism

The reaction to the first Sonic the Hedgehog trailer was — how to put this delicately? — utter horror. The “live-action” Sonic, based on the beloved series of Sega games, bore little of his inspiration’s charm, and only a vague resemblance to his physical features. He had small eyes and furry hands. Also, he had teeth. Which seemed super weird. Cartoon hedgehogs should never have teeth. That’s just simple physics.

I’m not sure why no one involved with the creation of this movie didn’t notice that their Sonic looked like he had been spewed from a Clive Barker movie until the public pointed it out, but apparently they didn’t. But the swift and uniform reaction to this trailer (which sound like this “AAAAAAAAAAAAAA”) has apparently inspired the filmmakers to revise Sonic’s look. Jeff Fowler, the director of the Sonic the Hedgehog movie, tweeted:

Fowler will have to work quickly; the Sonic film is due in theaters on November 8, 2019. That doesn’t give him much time to turn this creature from something that bubbled out of the depths of hell into an adorable critter. Then again, I’ve seen amateur artists on Twitter who’ve turned individual screengrabs from nightmare fuel to classic Sonic in just a few hours, so with several months at their disposal, it should be possible. Hopefully they will draw inspiration from their subject matter and do this quickly.